baRUNNER - a website for the British Airways Athletics Club
BA Athletics Club News Digest 28th November 2016Events:
New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome at all of these events. The full diary of club featured events is on the club website at: http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml. *Club Event Map: [long Google-map hyperlink you would not type in] Not for you, no longer interested? remove me please. Difficulty viewing this email? Read it off the website instead - http://www.barunner.org.uk/News Latest.shtml. Running related gossip and chat: Facebook Page "BARunner" https://www.facebook.com/BARunnerUK/ Winter HandicapThe second five mile winter handicap race is this Wednesday with start times from 18:00 to allow a finish at about 19:00. Remember that the results are based on the best five of six runs so anyone who didn't make the first run last month is still well placed to do well. Afterwards we will be eating and drinking at the Queen's Head. Ladies Cross Country match 2 - Saturday 3rd December - Mitcham Common
Ed: I know that Clara has had a team full of positive responses but we are allowed to enter more runners with the best five scoring and all enjoying the event and after's. Let her know to expect you. London Marathon2016 thanksSimon Turton and I recently attended a "thank you" session for all volunteer groups. The LM team were grateful for the hard and varied work put in by the large selection of organisations present, and hoped we would be there again to help in 2017. We also heard from a speaker on the work of the LM Charitable Trust - it's worth looking at this on the VMLM website. (www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com) One interesting fact: At £59 million raised, LM2016 was the biggest one day charity raising event in the world. So thanks to every one of you who marshalled. 2017 placesOur allocation of places for next year is on its way. As usual, we will prioritise runners rejected in the ballot, BAAC members, and individuals who have helped us with marshalling. If you haven't already contacted me to express interest, this is your last chance. If you have already asked for a place, please can you contact me again this week to confirm that you still need the place. Decision day will be early in December. Steve Hillier (mailto:stevehillier@msn.com) England AthleticsAn option with membership is to affiliate with England Athletics (or other UK Athletics regional equivalents, but the rest of this article will refer to England Athletics). The cost of this seems to go up each year and the reason for that is that the cost HAS gone up each year, and will continue to do so. UK Athletics was well subsidised ahead of the 2010 Olympics but that subsidy has been significantly reduced since hence the year-on-year increases. England Athletics has announced that the cost next year will go up to £14 and that further annual increases of £1 per year are to be expected. Obviously this is a nuisance for the club and its members who would prefer subs to be the same year-on-year to enable direct debits and the like. So why affiliate and what do you get for your money? There is probably just the one immediate pay off that most of us our aware of - if you are a current subscribing member of England Athletics then you can pay the lower entry fee for most running events across the country - usually a £2 discount. This means that if you enter one such event per month you will save £24 for your £13/£14 investment. But what else? Some events are only open to affiliated athletes - including for instance the Surrey League Cross Country races. Part of the reason for this and the £2 discount for other races is that England Athletics organise the third party insurance that such events need to have. Where does your money go? England Athletics funds a large variety of athletics related initiatives with a selection being English Schools AA and the provision of kit to UK Athletes so your money is put to use helping a range of athletes across the country. They also subsidise the training costs for coaches and officials and some members of the club have taken advantage of that to open up new avenues for themselves. There is more information available here: http://www.englandathletics.org/england-athletics/athlete-registration#Benefits Roderick Hoffman Club's 35th Anniversary event - 21st DecemberThank you to those of you who have let me know that you'll be attending and also to those of you who have sent apologies. Everyone else - please remember to notify us that you intend to make it to our anniversary event - by email, Facebook, pigeon etc. We need to know for the catering. Club parkrun results for Saturday 26th NovemberSteve's back but hasn't got his spreadsheet back up to speed yet so again, not the usual report and some runners and volunteers may have been missed...
Last week we reported on Adrian Haines being late at the start of an international parkrun but still managing to join in and get a finish. This week we had the story of a club runner, not listed above, who turned up at Greenpoint in South Africa at 08:45 "ready for the start" to discover the backend of the field coming in through the finish line. There are three positives about this:
There were 702 finishers at Greenpoint which is a contrast to the 134 who ran there with me in October 2013 - the event was then under threat because the Event Director was leaving. Joan Foxley becomes the most recent club associate to complete their 50th parkrun and earn a red 50 shirt. Barry Walters may become the next next weekend...or could put it off for a while. He has taken over six years to do his first 49. Steve Dobsworth achieved his 15th PB at Harrogate on his 30th run there. His improvement over the last couple of years led me to generate the following plot showing times and PBs at each parkrun he has attended. This is impressive - other than it does reveal that he let it go a bit last Christmas!
Christmas and New Year PlansTalking of Christmas don't forget that there are extra opportunities to run or volunteer on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Many parkruns are doing an extra run on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day many parkruns will operate and some with different and unusual start times [Steve Taylor take note] which can enable you to record a maximum of two parkrun results on the day. Being Sundays some Junior parkruns will also be operating on Christmas Day and New Year's Day so please volunteer even if you won't be in condition to run - teams may be stretched. The official list is here: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/christmas-compendium/ This unofficial map shows the New Year's Day start times for the planning of doubles: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1kY3v_kSttDm-yh0T3-3HcJf8jU8&ll=53.63556786421258%2C-2.947477499999991&z=6 If you want to take on a real challenge then get yourself booked on a flight to Washington USA where you should be able to do College Park on the Saturday and then both Roosevelt Island and Fletcher's Cove on New Year's Day to score three new parkruns for the club [nb: details still to be confirmed but I know of at least one non-airline parkrun tourist who has booked their ticket for this!] Roderick Hoffman
15 Years Ago - June 2001The June 2001 edition of the club's "Round the Block" newsletter, the first edited by Judy Connaghton {now whatever became of her?} featured an account of the club's twentieth anniversary event - which followed on from that year's Watersplash 10k event. John Williams wrote a report on how difficult it was to remember names, faces, places and performances from twenty years ago {Ed: just wait until December when it'll be 35 years we are trying to remember back on}. That wasn't the lead article - the club had recently and tragically lost one of its own, George Smith, and his passing was marked with a tribute written by Linda Ketterick. The newsletter also contained reports from the 2001 London Marathon - we had had 16 finishers the fastest of whom was Graham Taylor in 2:55:53 (although Sarah Knechtl could also claim first place for the successful delivery of Aaron that morning). And as a contrast there was a report on the Tube-O event organised by Simon Turton and Ian Hudson "Good hill work on the escalators but the course was short of marshals. Bit congested too with 150,000 other competitors". Back to the Watersplash 10k and, according to the published results, the winner was Alan Friar in 44:33. And the last word in the Newsletter was the announcement that Simon Turton and Judy Connaghton had become engaged {yes, that is what became of Judy}. Recent joiners that year included Deby Helsdon, Tim Bellars and John Banks. Running Shorts
Harrow Hill Race 2017Next year's event has been confirmed for Sunday, 12th February 2017 from 10.30am. The race starts on the playing fields of the famous Harrow School and continues through some of the old streets of Harrow on the Hill and includes two tough climbs up the hill.
Details and application: https://metros.org.uk/harrow-hill-race/ Roderick Hoffman
Next Digest?Results, news, pictures, feedback, jokes, stories - send it to us at news@barunner.org.uk. Club website:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
